some indie thoughts on management, leadership, strategy and execution of software development

Are you helping your competitors succeed ?

I just read a nice story on the home page of Luke Watson, and was struck by its ‘simple power’. It goes like this:

A few years ago, there was story going around about a farmer who won a particular category in the Nebraska State Fair four years in a row, which is unheard of there. The local newspaper sent a reporter to interview the farmer to find out what he did to achieve such a feat.

The reporter asked, “What’s your secret? Do you have any special corn seed?”
The farmer replied, “Absolutely, I develop my very own corn seed.”
The reporter said, “Okay, so that’s your secret – you developed your very own corn seed.”
And the farmer said, “No, not particularly.”
The reporter exclaimed, “I don’t understand. What’s your secret, then?”
The farmer said, “Well, I’ll tell you. I develop my own seed, and then I give it to my neighbors.”
The reporter said, “Huh? You develop your own seed and then give it to your neighbors? Why would you do that?” The reporter was incredulous – why would anyone in his right mind develop his own award-winning seed and then just give it away??
The farmer said, “You don’t understand how corn is pollinated. It’s pollinated from neighboring fields, and if you have fields around you that don’t have top-quality corn, then your own fields are not going to grow top-quality corn. But if my neighbors’ fields have strong corn, then I’ll have awesome corn! That’s how I won the Nebraska State Fair four times in a row.”

Is this open-source competition, open-source innovation, open-source collaborationÂ or what ???

Hats off to the farmer in the story who exhibited such an unconventional and long-haul thinking. How many of us would be willing to apply such a bold thought in our business ? I find this a brand new approach to innovation – one that is really deep-rooted in helping others succeed because that is the only way to bring one’s own success. Even though our farmer is still winning hands-down in the competition, his neighbors are clearly happy using his high-quality corn (otherwise they would not use those corns) and despite the fact our farmer always wins, they don’t seem to mind his success – because his style of innovation is helping them all improve their own respective yield. Without their support, he can’t succeed, and he won’t get their support it they themselves are not succeeding. So, first he must help them succeed so that they, in turn, could bring him bigger success ! wow !

I am trying to think of companies that flourish using such a model of innovation…could not think of one, but there must be some. Write back if you know of some such company.

2 thoughts on “Are you helping your competitors succeed ?”

From a fellow PM colleague at Johnstech when I shared this blog with him …

Helping competitors succeed? Wow that is a concept.

One example of this is the Goldratt Institute. They (Avraham Goldratt) coined the Theory of Constraints, but recognized that it would not flourish unless other training and software companies got involved and proliferated TOC methodology. Therefore, they trained their competition to provide TOC training courses, books, and software on the subject of TOC. Now the community of TOC training providers has grown significantly.